"Oh, dear," she said, a sort of quavering earnestness in her voice. "If this is a bad time for you, I can come back later."
She grabbed for the doorknob to pull the door shut.
Chapter 18
Grimly, Harold W. Smith led Remo into the security wing of Folcroft.
Entry into this area of the sanitarium was severely restricted. Medical staff were required to obtain special clearance before passing through the double-locked steel doors. Dr. Smith reviewed all applicants personally.
"Yes," Smith was saying, "this food-product tampering does bear a remarkable resemblance to events fifteen years ago. But as for the Leader's involvement, I believe Chiun is mistaken. It must be someone else. Perhaps the Leader had an ally or protege?"
Remo shook his head. "Chiun is positive it's the Leader," he said firmly. "End of story."
"Er, yes," said Smith, unconvinced. "I only wish you had informed me of your progress. We could have coordinated. The loss of Don Pietro is most regrettable."
Remo glared at Smith. "Would you be happier if I'd gotten zapped, too?"
"I might have come up with some alternative," Smith said.
"Give it a rest, Smitty," Remo growled. "We were on the damned assignment before you put the key in the ignition."
Stung, Smith reached down to buckle his belt. The movement brought a fresh wave of pain to his stomach, and he turned his head to conceal his grimace from Remo.
"Something wrong, Smitty?" Remo asked suddenly.
"Ulcer," Smith said quickly.
"Try milk."
"The local dairy raised the price a nickel."
"Then die, if saving a freaking nickel's worth that much to you," Remo growled.
The first door to the right along the two-tone green corridor was closed, but as they passed it, Remo peered through the window. Beyond the wire-mesh double pane of glass he saw a wasted blond figure covered by a thin white sheet. Jeremiah Purcell. Better known as "the Dutchman." The pupil of Chiun's first student, Nuihc. Now a cataleptic vegetable. Another ghost from Remo's past.
"One less fish in the sea," Remo said.
"That one will never bother us again," Smith said flatly.
"I've heard that line before."
They passed on, Remo's expression tight and worried.
"The Leader is in the next room," Smith said.
The CURE director pushed the thick steel door open and stepped into the darkened room.
There was only one bed inside. It was positioned against a side wall, beneath a large picture window. The venetian blinds were drawn over the window, obscuring the bars and the thirty-foot drop to the ground below. Only a hint of sunlight shone in through the overlapping white slats.
An ancient figure, like a honey-encrusted mummy, lay quietly in the bed. Assorted lifesupport equipment hummed and beeped around him, like mechanical spiders sucking the juices from the dry husk that was the patient through a profusion of intravenous tubes.
"The bills at Houston General Hospital became exorbitant," Smith explained. For some reason, he felt compelled to whisper. "Two years ago they went completely through the roof. It was an economic decision to move the Leader here. Nothing more."
"With you it always is, Smitty," Remo said. He examined the old man in the bed, moving the head to one side to look for the scar behind the right ear inflicted when Remo had shaved the gyonshi's brain years before.
"This isn't the Leader," he said suddenly.
Smith seemed stunned. "What?" he asked, clutching at his rimless glasses as if they could offer some support.
"It isn't him!" Remo repeated hotly. "They pulled a switch on you! There's no scar behind the ear!"
Smith was shaking his gray-haired head. "Impossible!"
He leaned over to study the face of the man in the bed.
Obviously he was quite old. And he had distinctively Oriental features: the Mongoloid eye fold, the hairless chin, small nose. Unquestionably Chinese.
The patient's hands had been positioned peacefully, like those of a corpse, on his pigeon chest. They were gnarled and wrinkled. The index finger had the same guillotine-shaped fingernail Remo had described to Smith years ago. Smith had ordered it removed when the patient was first brought to Folcroft, but it proved too strong for the sturdiest set of clippers. The staff had finally just left it alone.
Smith stared closer at the nail. He thought he had detected something. Something that shouldn't have been there.
There! A twitch . . .
"Odd," Smith muttered. "There shouldn't be any movement at all." He leaned closer, curious.
"Smitty! Get back!"
Remo leapt forward. Too late. The nail was in Harold Smith's throat before the CURE director had a chance to process his surprise.
The sharpened nail withdrew. As Smith lurched to one side, Remo caught him and pulled him away from the stirring figure on the bed. A trickle of blood slid down the length of Smith's narrow throat and seeped into the cheap fabric of his shirt collar. Remo set Smith in a chair near the bed, as the patient's eyes opened. The desiccated head rose slightly from the pillow, only to quiver and fall back, as if having exhausted its last bit of strength.
"You have failed, gweilo," the patient wheezed through a feeding tube. "Prepare you for your Final Death." The old man's hand shot toward his own throat, eager to end his existence. His fingers were fast for a man his age, but Remo's were faster.
Remo caught the hand while it was still a foot away from reaching its mark. It quivered in the air, as the old man attempted to comprehend why he had failed. When he saw Remo's hand curled around his own bony wrist it was as if he were seeing a hand for the first time, and it was something frightening and alien. A look of terror crossed his emaciated features, and he attempted to force his throat forward into his frozen hand. His stringy neck trembled with the effort. His old eyes seemed unaware of Remo's index finger on his forehead, casually holding him down.
The gyonshi looked up uncomprehendingly, glancing left and then right, finally settling on Remo's angry features. "We are of the undead," his dry lips intoned. "The undead fear not the Masters of Sinanju."
"Yeah?" Remo said harshly. "Let's see if the undead feel pain." His fingers stabbed into the old man's side.
The puckered eyelids shot wide in shock. The orbs beneath were bloodshot and yellowed. The old man howled in pain like a skewered rat.
"I'll take that as a yes," Remo said. "Where is the Leader?"
"Consigning the stomach-desecrators to the Final Death," the old gyonshi wheezed, his mushroom-colored tongue stabbing desperately at the room's claustrophobic air.
"Not specific enough." Remo's hand dug in deeper. Not enough to shock the system and kill the old man, but enough to induce pain such as he had never before experienced. "Where?" Remo asked again.
"I do not know!" the man shouted, his back arching in pain.
Remo could see the old Chinese was telling the truth. He decided to try a different tack. "How did you get here?" he demanded.
"In my previous living death, I was a patient at the Houston hospital," the other rasped. "The Leader's nurse came to me. The nurse helped me to become one with the Creed."
"The nurse?" Remo asked. "She's the one who infected you?"
The old man seemed puzzled. "Infected?" he asked.
"With her fingernail," Remo said.
"Infected," the old man chortled mockingly. "You blind fool!" His tone changed as Remo burrowed his hand in more deeply. The man sucked in a gulp of air over his blackened teeth. "She opened my mind to truths that will soon be understood by you as well, gweilo," he gasped.
"Who was this nurse?" Remo asked.
The old man's eyes circled the room one final time and locked on Remo's. They had the same strange, distant look as those of the other gyonshi.
"Mary Melissa Mercy was her blessed name," he rasped.
Remo asked, "Young? Super-healthy? Hair like a bonfire? Sensible white shoes?"
The old Chinese
nodded. "She is responsible for placing me here in the Leader's stead. An honor I will cherish until the day I live in death." The old man seemed tired from his effort. His breathing had become a rattle.
Remo understood now. Mary Melissa Mercy. The woman from the Three-G health food company. The Leader had been there the whole time. And Chiun had known it. That's why he had led Remo away. It all made sense now, right down to the sensible shoes.
Remo looked down at the Chinese. "This is your lucky day," he said fiercely. "You get to die a second time."
He pressed the heel of his hand to the old man's throat, until he felt the fragile windpipe collapse under his viselike grip. The rheumy eyes bulged one final time, then the old man's head lolled to one side.
Remo looked around the room for something to use to cut the man's throat.
He found nothing. The room was spartan, even by Folcroft standards. There wasn't even a nightstand near the bed. An unnecessary luxury, it seemed, for a man who presumably had been a mere shell on life-support.
"Dammit!"
Time was pressing. Smith would need medical attention, even though Remo knew there would be little that could be done for him. If Chiun hadn't been able to resist the gyonshi toxin, then an ordinary man like Smith would be no match for it.
He would have left the gyonshi as he was but for Chiun. The Master of Sinanju had seen some special significance in the release of the weird orange smoke, so Remo, while not entirely understanding it, decided he would honor the ritual.
He'd find a scalpel or something in the medical wing of the facility. But for now he turned his attention back to Harold Smith.
He didn't know how badly Smith had been affected by the gyonshi poison. The CURE director seemed to be sleeping peacefully at the moment. He remained slumped in the chair where Remo had left him, his chin pressed down against his chest, breathing deeply. In fact, he looked as relaxed as if he had been embalmed.
Remo experienced a moment of unreality. Chiun stricken. Now Smith. It felt like the walls were closing in.
He recalled the tale Chiun had told him years ago, when a Master of Sinanju-Remo suddenly remembered his name had been Pak-had encountered the blood-drinking gyonshi in a Shanghai forest. There, the House of Sinanju had nearly been rendered extinct, as one by one Pak's servants' relatives were overcome by a mist that took the form of men with long, killing nails. Only by deceit and cunning had Pak compelled the bloodsuckers to spare him.
Now, untold generations later, Remo stood in Pak's sandals. And he found them cold.
Remo shook off his fear.
He decided to get Smith to a doctor, then return later to release the bad air of the dead man.
Remo stepped up to the chair and slipped his left hand behind Smith's stiff neck. His right found the backs of his employer's knees, and he started to gather the old man up.
At the moment of Remo Williams' maximum exposure, Harold Smith's eyes sprang open in a wild burst of energy. Remo felt the vibrations as Smith's heart rate increased almost fivefold.
Smith's hand shot up in a stunningly quick strike.
There was little time to react. Remo felt the sudden, unstoppable jab to his throat. His blood ran cold.
Remo Williams was spared only by the fact that Harold W. Smith was by nature a meticulously neat individual.
The older man's fingernails were always kept clipped and filed precisely. There were no sharp edges to pierce the skin. The blunt tip of his index finger merely poked the flesh of Remo's neck, like a soft eraser.
"Nice try," Remo snapped, dropping Smith back into the chair. A cold sweat trickled down the gully of Remo's back.
Hot-eyed, Smith tried again. This time, by holding his finger to Remo's throat and digging at his carotid artery, leaving only pale tracks that quickly faded.
Firmly, Remo removed Smith's hand and forced it into a harmless fist. Smith looked up, but the gray eyes that stared into Remo's were not those of Harold W. Smith. They were those of Don Pietro. Of the old gyonshi in the bed behind him. Of the Chinese couple. Of Sal Mondello. Of the black-clad Oriental with the creepy eyebrow who had ambushed Chiun.
They were the eyes of the Leader. The Leader who stared mockingly into Remo's soul through the vacant, dispossessed eyes of his superior.
And a voice that was unlike Smith's began to chant.
"The stomach is the center. The house of all life and death. Life begins and ends here. The soul dwells there. Destroy the stomach and destroy all life. We are the holy saviors of the stomach. We wander the earth as the undead, slaves to our God, punishers of all transgressors."
"Tell it to the head psychologist," Remo said bitterly, hefting Smith carefully into his arms.
He carried him out of the hospital room, knowing that his employer was as lost to him as the Master of Sinanju.
For there was no cure for gyonshism-except by slitting the throat and releasing the orange smoke that clogged Smith's lungs.
Remo knew he might have to perform that operation on Smith. And he would do it.
But who would free the Master of Sinanju from his living hell? For Remo knew he could never bring himself to cut the throat of the man who was more than a father to him-not even if Chiun himself were to beg for such a boon.
Chapter 19
Mary Melissa Mercy stood before the Leader in the security room at Three-G, Incorporated, the room he had been using as his headquarters. He was seated before a bank of television monitors.
"The Master of Sinanju has succumbed!" she trumpeted proudly.
The words thrilled him. So many years . . . so much wasted time . . . so hungry for vengeance. Now, fulfilled.
"He is dead?" the Leader asked eagerly.
"Better." The girl's tone seemed to shimmer with delight. "He has become one with the holy Creed. He is gyonshi now."
The Leader nodded. "The Taoist," he said, knowingly.
"Yes, Leader."
"The last any would suspect. Our bitterest enemy, but for Sinanju. The Shanghai Web proved true. The Master and his gweilo thought they had evaded each snare laid in their path. They did not dream that only through flight could they escape their doom. Only through flight."
His hands grasped the arms of the old-fashioned wooden chair that now served as his throne. He had once had a true throne of rosewood and rare gems, but Sinanju had robbed him of that glory. Just as they had robbed him of fifteen years of his life in death. The Final Death. But now his long years of shame had been expunged by the words of his gweilo nurse.
"The plan?" he asked, his blind pearl eyes upturned to where he sensed the girl to be.
The girl hesitated. "All is not well," she admitted.
A frown like a spring thundercloud passed across the Leader's shriveled purple features. "Explain."
"Their dead number only in the thousands, Leader. Not millions. Your requirements for the Final Death have not been achieved." She shrugged. "Not enough chicken-eaters, I guess."
The Leader seemed to relax ever-so-slightly. "The despised Master of Sinanju is no more?" he asked.
"Yes, Leader."
"If the Master can be stopped, cannot the pupil?"
Mary frowned. "Yes," she replied at length.
"Then where is the failure?"
"The failure is to your ancestors, Leader. To our Creed."
"Missy, this Creed of which you speak is as old as I, and older still. It is no more yours than the air you breathe, or the ground upon which you tread. The gyonshi will survive Sinanju, that is all that matters. Be it by a week, a day, an hour. The gweilo will come, and he will be consumed. Like the sacred blood that breaks our fast."
"But . . . the Final Death?"
"Will be achieved, Missy. There are other poisons. Plagues, famines, disease. If I am not here to carry out the work, it will be another. It will be you." He said it as an offhanded gesture. She was, after all, but a woman. And a white. She could be true to the Creed in spirit, but not in blood.
Mary Melissa Mercy's ampl
e chest swelled with pride. "I will not let you down, O Leader."
He turned away from her, waving his guillotine-nailed hand in a shooing gesture. "I know you will not, my nurse."
Chapter 20
The Master of Sinanju knew not where he abided.
Upon regaining his senses, Chiun muttered a low curse for having allowed himself to fall victim to the Leader's trap.
The Leader knew what Chiun would do. Knew what he must do. It was the Leader himself who, years before, had infected the Sinanju elder with the gyonshi virus. The Leader knew of Chiun's father. It had been the Leader who had engineered his father's ultimate disgrace. If the elder of the village had succeeded in striking Chiun so many years ago, his plan would have come to fruition that much sooner. Sinanju would have ended then, the long bloodline severed.
But Sinanju had not ended. It lived. It lived in Chiun. It now lived in Remo as well.
Chiun got out of bed, setting his sandaled feet to the floor.
The Master of Sinanju glanced down at his feet. Most curious. It was unusual that the American doctors had not removed his sandals.
Chiun studied the room carefully. The walls were painted in two unappetizing shades of green. Folcroft. He did not know how he had gotten here. He hoped that someone other than Remo had found him with the Taoist. Remo would never allow him to live down the shame of letting a Chinaman land a blow, even if that Chinese had been a gyonshi bloodsucker. It would be just like Remo to overlook an important detail such as that.
The green room seemed smaller now. Much smaller. Only a quarter of the size it had been a moment before.
It must be the gyonshi poison, affecting my senses, the Master of Sinanju decided.
Chiun felt his neck. His hand came away in horror. Blood. His fingertips were coated in blood. There was a gash in his neck as wide around as a Sumerian gold piece.
It was strange his body had not gone to work to heal the wound. Stranger still that the American doctors who seemed to sprout up like dandelions, around the Fortress Folcroft of Emperor Smith had not bound his neck in thick sheets of disease-ridden bandages. That always seemed to be their answer to everything.
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